Bethlehem mom mourns as police probe son's killing

Valerie Wimberly said she wishes she could go back to the last phone call she had with her 21-year-old son. Then, maybe, that awful night wouldn't have happened.

Pamela Lehman

Valerie Wimberly said she wishes she could go back to the last phone call she had with her 21-year-old son. Then, maybe, that awful night wouldn't have happened.

Tyree Wimberly had recently become a father, was working at a restaurant and trying to turn his life around, his mother said. He called her for a ride home from work about midnight Friday, but she begged off because she didn't feel well, so he walked home.

Less than two hours after that call, Bethlehem police found Wimberly on the sidewalk outside a strip club with bullet wounds. He died a few hours later.

His mother said Wimberly was not at the club, but after returning from work, had left her house with another friend to go to a nearby store to buy cigarettes for his sister. She said her son's friend told her that while walking by the club, Wimberly got into an argument with a man who was trying to get him to buy a bag of marijuana.

"My son was yelling, 'I can't take it! I'm tired of this!' and the guy shot him twice in the chest," an angry Valerie Wimberly said at her Bethlehem home Monday, recounting what the friend told her of her son's last hours. "My son wasn't a criminal or a thug. He wanted to be away from that kind of life."

Police are still investigating the homicide, the first killing in Bethlehem this year. As of Monday evening, investigators had released few details about the slaying. No arrests had been made.

Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim said Tyree Wimberly, who lived in Allentown, was found around 1:36 a.m. outside Scoobies Gentlemen's Club at 2327 Hanover Ave., in Allentown. He was found on the sidewalk outside, which police officials say is in Bethlehem. He died a few hours later at St. Luke's University Hospital-Fountain Hill.

His mother said police have not told her much, and she's sure she doesn't have the whole story of what happened that night. In the past, she said her son had gotten into minor trouble with police and was charged with theft in 2011.

But she also said her son was proud to become a father and loved to nuzzle his son's cheeks to make the boy laugh. He had just started the job at a Bethlehem restaurant and was working hard to pay his fines, she said.

She said when her son called for the ride home, she wasn't feel well. She said he planned to spend the night at her house."I wish I had done something different," she said, wishing she would have spent that time with him.

She said once her son got home, his sister, who lives nearby, asked her brother to go to the store. She said Tyree Wimberly was walking back from the store with his friend when a man stopped Wimberly, asking him to buy some "goods," a baggie of marijuana.

Wimberly refused and tried to walk away, but the man followed, shoving the bag of drugs in her son's face, his mother said.

"He kept telling my son it was good, and to smell it, and got really aggressive," Valerie Wimberly said.As Wimberly struggled to get away from the man, the suspect turned and fired two shots. Wimberly was shot in the heart and lungs, his mother said.

"Before he died, he said, 'I'm shot. Call 911,' " she said the friend told him. "I just wished I could have talked to him."

Anyone with any information about the shooting is asked to contact Detective Jason Fulmer at 610-997-7682 or Detective Brad Jones at 610-865-7146.